Welcome Heidi Joy Tretheway – Author of Won’t Last Long

Setup: On Melina and Joshua’s third date, he invites her to a mini-Grand Prix racetrack. Melina is skeptical—this is a date for 16-year-olds, not for someone who’s 30. But Melina’s competitive spirit kicks in and Joshua does his best to beat her.

Melina slammed on her brakes at the stop line in a rush of adrenaline. She unsnapped her seatbelt and popped out of the racecar’s seat, turning as Joshua pulled up behind her.

She’d won.

Melina pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair, which had pulled free of the ponytail and tangled in the wind. She unzipped her down jacket and sauntered to the side of the track, putting an extra sway in her hips, letting him watch.

Victory lap.

Her face was flushed with excitement, her forehead slick with sweat from the helmet, her lips chapped and nose red and raw from the cold. Melina peeled off her gloves and watched Joshua launch himself out of his car’s seat, pulling off his helmet and walking with it tucked under his arm.

“You think you’re pretty hot, don’t you?” Joshua said, giving her a smoldering look as his eyes cruised the length of her body.

“You think I am.”

“I do, it’s true. And probably more so now. I can’t believe I wasted so much of my allowance on this as a kid and I don’t have respectable racing skills to show for it.”

“They were more than respectable,” Melina admitted. “We tore up the track. I just did it with a little more style.” She flashed a grin of mock conceit.

“I used to race my brothers. They’d give me grief if they knew you’d passed me using one of Charlie’s dirty tricks. I should have seen that coming.”

Joshua caged Melina against the chain link fence with his arms and she held his gaze, daring him to make a move. “A little bit dirty is just the way I like you.”

Author bio:

Heidi Joy lives in Happy Valley off Sunnyside Road. She swears she did not make that up.

Heidi’s obsessed with storytelling. Her career includes marketing, journalism, and a delicious few years as a food columnist. Media passes took her backstage with several rock bands, where she learned that sometimes a wardrobe malfunction is exactly what the rock star intends.

You’ll most often find Heidi Joy with her husband and two small kids cooking, fishing, exploring the Northwest, and building epic forts in their living room.